2017 FUSRP - Supervisor Application Guide

Program Structure

Students, supervised by a leading mathematician/researcher, form a research group and work with other students on an original research project.

Students receive a daily meal allowance and, depending on where they are travelling from, transportation, housing, travel support, and medical coverage.

Faculty/researchers from outside the Greater Toronto Area may apply for reimbursement of travel expenses.

The Fields Directorate reviews and evaluates all applications/project submissions. Potential supervisors are welcome to submit multiple projects to increase their chances of being matched with a student.

Assignment of students to supervisors is determined by various factors, such as student project rankings, strength of matches, and availability of funds.

Fields will strive to equitably distribute students among eligible projects, but cannot guarantee the number of students or that all eligible projects will proceed to the student-project matching phase. Fields cannot accommodate requests for a specific student or for students from a particular country.

Fields strives to match students with appropriate projects. Supervisors receive their assigned students’ CVs for review after student selections.

If a supervisor’s project is not selected for the year for which it is submitted, with the agreement of the supervisor, it will be kept on file for consideration in subsequent years.

Supervisor Application

The form includes a supervisor and a project profile. Applicants may save and return to their application at a later time and include more than one project to their submission. When an application is submitted, the system sends an email confirmation to the email address on file with a copy of the proposal.

Supervisor Eligibility

Supervisor Expectations

During the Program, the supervisor will

Supervise a group of two to five students for nine weeks.

Interact/meet with students at least once a week (preferably more). In the event of an absence, the supervisor may appoint another faculty member/researcher, postdoctoral fellow, or graduate student to supervise or to meet with the undergraduates.

Guide and inspire students to reach their scholarly potential.

Ensure conditions conducive to student research and intellectual growth.

Provide guidance to drive the progress of the research.

Participate in and attend the Program’s Introductory Session and Mini-Conference on July 4 and August 28, 2017, respectively.

Provide students a weekly research plan with goals, objectives, and milestones.

Ensure students observe a 35-hour work week.

Students may collaborate for longer periods of time with their supervisor. Fields is not responsible (financially or otherwise) for the student outside of the confirmed nine weeks.

During the application, students rank research projects, which allows for a student-project matching process. Undergraduates will likely have limited experience with methodological tools and the research process—learning that process is one key goal of the Program—so project descriptions should be accessible to such an audience.

Outcomes from the first few years of the Program showed that students thrive when research projects have well-defined goals and associated tasks, as well as supervisors that are accustomed to employing the methods required to examine the research question. Students working in such scenarios were much more confident in conducting research at the university-level and are very likely to continue with research throughout their undergraduate career.

Questions?

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The Fields Institute is a centre for mathematical research activity - a place where mathematicians from Canada and abroad, from academia, business, industry and financial institutions, can come together to carry out research and formulate problems of mutual interest. Our mission is to provide a supportive and stimulating environment for mathematics innovation and education. Learn more about us.

The Fields Institute promotes mathematical activity in Canada and helps to expand the application of mathematics in modern society.

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